One of my accounts in St. Louis was telling me of a new place that featured "pour-your-own" craft beers, wood-fired pizzas and sandwiches. Well, they had me at "pour-your-own" craft beers and their description of the place made me want to go there. We ended up meeting at Tapped one evening on a recent trip to St. Louis.
Ryan Reel had been in retail for over 20 years, many of those as a manager of a big box retailer in the St. Louis area. His wife, Lindsay, was the director of pharmacy at a local hospital. Fed up with retail management and wanting to become his own boss, Ryan looked into a concept that was becoming big on the coasts - self-poured beer and wine bars. He got in touch with iPourit, a California-based company that specialized in tap systems that allowed customers to pour their own beer or wine, giving them a choice of being able to taste different styles while a computer kept track of how many ounces the customer has poured. It also cuts down on waste and the system monitors keg levels letting management know that a keg may be running dry.
The Reel's found a spot for their new venture in what was a former wood-fired pizza restaurant. The space was initially going to be a second location for a local bar/restaurant in St. Louis, but when that fell through, the Reel's jumped on it. After a few months of renovations and putting in the tap system, Tapped opened in early May of 2017. They featured 48 craft beers on tap - many of them local beers from Missouri and Illinois. The 48 tap system was one of the largest that iPourit has designed for a pour-your-own bar and it was the first iPourit system in the state of Missouri.
I pulled up to Tapped located on Manchester Road in the Maplewood neighborhood of St. Louis, not far from the Schlafly Bottleworks. (see map) I met the guys inside and I started a tab for us at the front counter. We were given these wristwatch-looking things called RFID's (radio frequency identification). Each RFID allowed the user to tap on the screen above the tap to activate the system, then the system's computer kept track of how many ounces were poured. Each user has a limit of 40 ounces before they have to go back up to the front counter to have them authorize another 40 ounce limit. (I suppose the re-authorization is a good way to also gauge how drunk a person may be, as well.)
With 48 beers on tap, there was a wide variety of beers to choose from. Beers were grouped together by style, so they had stouts, IPA's, lagers, wheat beers and ciders bunched up. (You can click here to see what Tapped has on tap right now.) The monitor screen above the taps would let you know how much beer you poured and how much you have left on your authorization.
I tried many beers while I was there which is one of the great things about the "pour-your-own" concept. I poured 3 or 4 ounces of about a dozen types of beers and I settled on the Urban Chestnut pale ale for my first pint, then got the Urban Chestnut altbier for my second pint. My final pint was the Schlafly Summer Lager, a helles-style beer perfect on a warm summer evening. My wife likes to try samples of different beers at brewpubs and I thought she would just love this place.
With a small bar in front of the taps, Tapped also featured a number tables for people to sit at. On the wall were a number of prints depicting the history of breweries in St. Louis. It was kind of fun to grab a beer and walk around to see some of the pictures that dated back to pre-Prohibition eras.
When the Reel's took over the building, they kept in the large wood-fired pizza oven and they kept pizza on the menu. They also had sharable appetizers such as Bavarian-style pretzels, fried baby portobello mushrooms, and toasted ravioli - a St. Louis staple. They also had soups, salads, and sandwiches in addition to the wood-fired pizzas and calzones.
I ended up getting the Italian sandwich that featured salami, coppa, and pastrami that was topped with tomato, onion, lettuce, smoked gouda, and sweet St. Louis-style Italian dressing all served on a hoagie bun. A side of fries came with the sandwich and I had the option of having it served cold or hot - I took the hot option. A couple of the other guys got the hot pastrami sandwich.
One of the guys decided to get a pizza. He got the veggie pizza that had green peppers, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, red onions and black olives. It had a bit of a char to the perimeter of the pizza and the cheese on top was caramelized. The crust was a little more thick than I like, but my guest said that the pizza was very good. He offered me a piece, but I declined.
Actually, I'm sort of wishing that I had gotten a calzone. The sandwich was fine enough, but there was a lot of bread that I had to work through to get to the meat and toppings. But the sandwich had good flavor with a bit of a spicy bite. The fries were just throwaways for me. A calzone with Italian sausage and pepperoni would have been a better bet.
Tapped is a unique experience. I'm running into more and more of the "pour-your-own" beer places in my travels, but for the first time experiencing one of these places was a real treat. The problem is that by serving yourself, it's easy to get over-served. After sampling some beers and then getting a couple of pints, you pretty much run through your first 40 ounce allotment. But it was a slick and fun way to enjoy many different types of beers. The sandwiches were all right, but one of my guests who got the wood-fired pizza said it was very good. So, maybe next time I go to Tapped I'll have to try the pizza or a calzone.
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